Tomato, tomaaato, tomayto

Next to potatoes and freshly baked bread, I think tomatoes is one of the best inventions ever! It's great in salads, on cheese sandwiches and I even eat them sliced up on a piece of toast, seasoned with some salt and pepper. But mostly cooking a tomato sauces makes a great accompaniment to almost any meal.

For supper last night, it was a bit of a quick fix. I fried some freezer-packed crumbed fish and potato wedges. I served this with a generous side portion of my tomato sauce ensemble. I didn't get around to snapping shots of the dish, but there was some left-over tomato that I decided to recycle for lunch, just by adding some penne noodles.



A simple way of making this sauce is by using:

1 onion
chopped garlic, fresh garlic is always better
a combination of green/yellow/red pepper, or whatever you have
spices of your choice, the simplest spice needed is ground cumin
3 small tomatoes
1 teaspoon of tomato concentrate
about 1/3 cup of sugar
salt to taste
fresh coriander leaves

You can chop, grate, pulverise or by whatever means you want to use, get your onions and the like, into small pieces. I chopped my onions and peppers. First sauté the onion in a little olive oil with the garlic. If it sticks add a little water. When the onions are glossy and starting to change colour, add the peppers. Whatever spices you want to use, throw it in. In this particular instance, I only used some cumin and leaf masala. There are times where I get extra daring and sometimes add a variety of spices including curry powder, chilli powder or even cajun spice, amongst others and if wish to execute your taste buds, feel free to add vast amounts of freshly chopped chillies.
I grated my tomatoes, you can chop or even blend them if you want to and add it to the mixture. Add the sugar and some water to slightly thin the mixture, then let it cook for about 10 minutes to become saucy. Add your required amount of salt and just before serving, stir in the coriander leaves.

This tomato sauce can be served as a side dish or add some meatballs or sausage for a meatier meal. I like this with pastas and it's great for a more flavour filled macaroni and cheese.